1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to writing templates and guides, and more particularly to resilient guides useful in constraining the writing strokes of those having imperfect control over their writing musculature.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Templates that guide the hand of those attempting to write are well known in the art. Most frequently such templates provide a correctly formed edge along which the writing instrument is drawn in order to produce a properly formed letter or number. Examples of such templates can be found in the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,523 to MacLeod; U.S. Pat. No. 5,516,152 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,707,081 to Luna; U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,197 to Pagalies; and others. While suitable for the purposes intended, each of the foregoing is focused on defining the graphic form of the alphanumeric character and not at assisting in the muscular movements in the course of writing.
The course of training undeveloped writing musculature, and/or the course of assisting those suffering from muscular infirmity or disease like muscular dystrophy entails different notions than those entailed in the proper graphic form of a character. Typically those suffering from imperfect muscular control because of lack of sufficient development or disease lack the necessary muscular responses associated with the larger movements of a well behaved servo-mechanism and therefore need mechanical assistance in maintaining the writing instrument position relative the lines on a page. Once this is attained sufficient small movement control exists to produce a readable character. In such instances training and assistance are better achieved by devices that urge or prefer one or another direction of movement in order to position the writing hand, leaving the remainder of the writing movement essentially unconstrained. The preferred training and assistance mechanism is one that directs the larger muscular movements and it is one such mechanism that is disclosed herein.
Accordingly, it is the general purpose and object of the present invention to provide a writing guide that aligns an elastic member along the writing line to resiliently guide the writer""s musculature.
Other objects of the invention are to provide a writing guide that defines a resilient boundary along the preferred positions of the handwritten text.
Yet further objects of the invention are to provide a resilient line guide useful in assisting those with imperfect or undeveloped writing musculature.
Briefly, these and other objects are accomplished within the present invention by providing a rectilinear frame defined by a vertical piece joined to a horizontal piece, where the edge of the vertical piece is also useful to guide the frame along the paper. The free end of the horizontal piece, moreover, is provided with an offset attachment to which one end of an elastic band is secured with the other end stretched to engage the edge of the vertical piece in a generally spaced relationship adjacent the horizontal piece. In this form the elastic band or strip is stretched over the paper, providing a restraint or guide to the vertical excursions of any writing instrument and thereby assisting those with less than precise control over small movement of their musculature.
In an alternative implementation several elastic strips can be thus stretched in parallel, between several points of engagement, to provide such elastic restraint on both extremes of vertical excursion as may be desired. Moreover, the frame pieces may be releasably secured to each other for convenient collapse and storage. Thus a widely adaptable structure is devised which is simple in assembly, convenient in use and inexpensively produced.